Los Angeles Archdiocese selling property to pay Sex Abuse claims

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I don’t want to treat lightly something that is a serious problem. But gee, if the L.A. Diocese would sell off the “Taj Mahoney” to, oh, let’s say a computer software company or a government agency, either of which would fit the architectural style, then collect money from individuals to build something that actually looks like a church, everybody would be better off. Indeed, all dioceses could sell off all of their awful modern structures and start over. Those that don’t have to pay off lawsuits with the money could build better ones than those that do. Well, okay, maybe the former could also contribute some of the proceeds to the latter.

I, for one, would not miss those awful structures for a day, not an hour.
 
Instead of selling the property how about leasing it for 99 years? When you sell it you realize a one time windfall but if you lease it you continue to realize revenue as long as it is being leased. We all know that there is no end in sight to these priest sex abuse cases, and I dont think that no one is naive enough to think that there are no such acts being committed in the present moments.
 
ljpw1958 said:
Instead of selling the property how about leasing it for 99 years? When you sell it you realize a one time windfall but if you lease it you continue to realize revenue as long as it is being leased.
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This, also, assumes fiscal responsibility. You previously mentioned Quigley. Supposedly, most of the property surrounding the school on that block is also owned/leased long term by the Archdiocese. But where does the leasing money go? Apparently not to the minor seminary fund which it ought to have been benefitting all these years.
We all know that there is no end in sight to these priest sex abuse cases, and I dont think that no one is naive enough to think that there are no such acts being committed in the present moments.
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Perhaps the priests and bishops who look the other way ought to be the ones who are made financially responsible for paying off the lawsuits.
 
Ridgerunner said:
I don’t want to treat lightly something that is a serious problem. But gee, if the L.A. Diocese would sell off the “Taj Mahoney” to, oh, let’s say a computer software company or a government agency, either of which would fit the architectural style, then collect money from individuals to build something that actually looks like a church, everybody would be better off. Indeed, all dioceses could sell off all of their awful modern structures and start over. Those that don’t have to pay off lawsuits with the money could build better ones than those that do. Well, okay, maybe the former could also contribute some of the proceeds to the latter.

I, for one, would not miss those awful structures for a day, not an hour.
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I have freinds in LA Diocese, so I got to keep this short. This last quote or post is excellent. Thank you - it picked up my day.🙂
 
orgel_maestro said:
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6660429.stm
! If the shoe were on the other foot, n you were a victim, would you feel guilty taking that much money? I’m just curious. I would be angry,…
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I think it is more then just anger. Try RAGE. Try an entire life ruined by the betrayal in childhood, the psychological damage that goes on and on and seems to be beyond healing. They are mental, emotional, and spiritual cripples.

Crippled by the Priest they trusted, ignored by the Church, negelected by the Church, denied by the Church, stonewalled by the Church, legal proceedings dragged out by the Church, and denied access to records by the Church (“We have nothing to hide, and intend to keep on hiding it”).

And then to understand the records show the Priests were not dismissed or disciplined, but just moved from one Parish to another. Hoping that the Priests would “reform”, or what?

Being a member of the Church living in Los Angeles, I may regret the financial bombshell the Church is going through. I’m surprised it hasn’t sought Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. My $20/week donation may indeed be spent on the claims.

But I feel I must keep an open mind that this is God’s will. The Church SINNED. Badly. This may or may not be a punishment to bring the Church back to the path of God, and protecting the vulnerable. And to help make sure that nothing like this happens in the future.

Have we learned any lessons from all this?
 
Andruschak said:
I think it is more then just anger. Try RAGE. Try an entire life ruined by the betrayal in childhood, the psychological damage that goes on and on and seems to be beyond healing. They are mental, emotional, and spiritual cripples.

Crippled by the Priest they trusted, ignored by the Church, negelected by the Church, denied by the Church, stonewalled by the Church, legal proceedings dragged out by the Church, and denied access to records by the Church (“We have nothing to hide, and intend to keep on hiding it”).

And then to understand the records show the Priests were not dismissed or disciplined, but just moved from one Parish to another. Hoping that the Priests would “reform”, or what?

Being a member of the Church living in Los Angeles, I may regret the financial bombshell the Church is going through. I’m surprised it hasn’t sought Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. My $20/week donation may indeed be spent on the claims.

But I feel I must keep an open mind that this is God’s will. The Church SINNED. Badly. This may or may not be a punishment to bring the Church back to the path of God, and protecting the vulnerable. And to help make sure that nothing like this happens in the future.

Have we learned any lessons from all this?
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Well put - I get the feeling you are holding back even more pain. Watch Canadian news June 29. A day of action is planned by First Nations (Native People) as they tray to get Government and major Churches up there to admit what they have been doing to School Children and where 50000 kids who never came home from school are buried.

Thanks for sharing – its tough to say the least.
 
Andruschak said:
But I feel I must keep an open mind that this is God’s will. The Church SINNED. Badly. This may or may not be a punishment to bring the Church back to the path of God, and protecting the vulnerable. And to help make sure that nothing like this happens in the future.

Have we learned any lessons from all this?
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I would disagree with you only as to the statement that THE CHURCH sinned. As the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church, as such, cannot sin. Jesus promised that the gates of hell would not prevail against it. But bishops sure can sin, and have, and some likely still do.

I think if any lessons can be learned from all this, they might be stated thus:
  1. Adopting moral approaches from the popular culture is something churchmen should never do. I realize Weakland and perhaps some others were, themselves, offenders. But by and large, I think the bishops “bought into” the psychobabble of our times. What they either did not know, or ignored, is that modern psychology’s only real objective is to make people “comfortable” with whatever lives they might have, no matter how immoral. If the fear of hell was not enough to dissuade the offending priests from offending again, there was never a possibility that psychological “treatment” would succeed.
  2. Blandly accepting homosexuality in the priesthood is a big mistake, notwithstanding political correctness. Almost all of the “pedophilia” cases were cases in which homosexual priests had relations with post-pubescent males. If, as JPII said, homosexuality is “fundamentally disordered”, bishops should not have assumed they knew, in every instance, exactly what the limits of the disorder were.
  3. Proper financial management of a diocese does not consist in constructing “monuments to oneself”, resulting in being overburdened with hard assets and illiquid.
  4. Bishops are not potentates. Many dioceses are bloated bureaucracies, filled with modernists, many being former nuns who jumped ship or current nuns whose idea of “ministry” is drawing a paycheck at the chancery to set up encounter seminars. Bishops ought to be out in the parishes most of the time, finding out what’s going on and what’s really needed, and let a handful of devout retirees from the financial and business worlds manage the finances back at the chancery office. Bishops ought to close down most of the diocesan newspapers and simply arrange with a well-done and traditional publication like The Register to put in a “local” insert, and distribute that. Every bishop should consider it his duty to spend at least one hour a month at lunch in every Catholic school, part of the objective being to recruit vocations. I think it would do a lot for kids to see the bishop carry his tray to the table and ask if he could sit among them. Maybe, just maybe, if some kid was being harrassed by an errant priest, or lay teacher or whomever, he/she might think he/she could call the bishop as a friend and lay his/her troubles at his feet. If a kid ate lunch across from the bishop today, he/she might just call him tomorrow and tell him something he would never otherwise know until it had gotten 'way out of hand.
  5. It is up to the Vatican to vet priests rigorously, and not simply rely on what the “good old boy” network says when it comes to appointing bishops. I think the Vatican is moving in the right direction, but it needs to do more.
  6. It is up to the Vatican to “clean house” in the seminaries; tossing out all the modernists and relativists (same thing, I guess) and “lavender mafia” types, and non-Catholic instructors. Again, I think the Vatican is moving in the right direction on this, but it needs to do more.
Anyway, those are the lessons I think the Church SHOULD have learned from all this. Maybe it has.
 
Ridgerunner said:
I don’t want to treat lightly something that is a serious problem. But gee, if the L.A. Diocese would sell off the “Taj Mahoney”…
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The “cathedral” is safe because its such a remarkably bad design for a church that no one else would want it for anything near its “booked” value. I drove buy it yesterday and was reminded how awful it is. I think it would have to be levelled to get its value, because the empty land parcel in downtown LA is more valuable than that monument to episcopal hubris and pride.
 
DWPC said:
The “cathedral” is safe because its such a remarkably bad design for a church that no one else would want it for anything near its “booked” value. I drove buy it yesterday and was reminded how awful it is. I think it would have to be levelled to get its value, because the empty land parcel in downtown LA is more valuable than that monument to episcopal hubris and pride.
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But maybe the buyer could hire that guy who blows up buildings on tv and use the lot for some better purpose.
 
orgel_maestro said:
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6660429.stm

Im part of the LA archdiocese so this kinda affects me. According to the article, the archdiocese has already paid 40 million out of 60, but there are still more cases to be heard and could cost up to a billion. I know what the archdiocese and the abusive priests did were wrong, but I cant help but feel at the same time frustrated. I do sympathize with the victims, but am I the only one who feels frustrated that all our donation money we’ve donated long before and all the church property are being used to pay these law suits? I think the victims should be entitlted to some monetary compensation, but am I the only one who thinks its a little too much? According to the article, it was like over a million dollar per case, dang thats a lot of money! If the shoe were on the other foot, n you were a victim, would you feel guilty taking that much money? I’m just curious. I would be angry, but I would never take hundreds of thousands or a million of dollars, because I know that money came from parishioners and its not their fault the clergy screwed up. Again, I just want to reiterate that I do sympathize with the victims, I just feel a little frustrated as a layperson who is standing and watching all this from the sidelines.
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Hi Orgel,

My diocese has also sold property to use in court settlements. I’ve had many of the same feelings that you’ve described, but countinuously remind myself that what happened to the victims was gravely wrong, and that if this is what it takes to put this all behind us, then so be it.

I’m not sure if your parish or parishes within your diocese do this, but my parish has set up an account in which money is put that is somehow protected from all the court settlements. Money that we put into this account cannot be used to pay the victims. I would imagine that my parish isn’t the only one doing this.
 
LightHearted said:
Hi Orgel,

My diocese has also sold property to use in court settlements. I’ve had many of the same feelings that you’ve described, but countinuously remind myself that what happened to the victims was gravely wrong, and that if this is what it takes to put this all behind us, then so be it.

I’m not sure if your parish or parishes within your diocese do this, but my parish has set up an account in which money is put that is somehow protected from all the court settlements. Money that we put into this account cannot be used to pay the victims. I would imagine that my parish isn’t the only one doing this.
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I think many people feel this way, but their voices are not being heard, or they are just to hurt to put it into words. thanks for posting your thoughts.
 
Ridgerunner said:
I would disagree with you only as to the statement that THE CHURCH sinned. As the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church, as such, cannot sin. Jesus promised that the gates of hell would not prevail against it. But bishops sure can sin, and have, and some likely still do.
.
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Have the Bishops and Priests sinned? Maybe I overlooked it whilst petting the cats, but have any of the Priests and Bishops involved come out before the cameras and state that what happenend was WRONG? That the Church is 100% at fault, not the victims?

(If they have, well, that’s a good start.)
 
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